Effect of Mood Induction and Brain-behavioral Systems on Emotional Information Processing: Signal Detection Theory-based Analysis

This study was aimed to verify the effects of mood induction and brain-behavioural systems on emotional information processing [reaction time (RT), response bias (ß), and response sensitivity (d')] in individuals with high BAS/BIS sensitivity as compared with a control group. At first, 527 undergraduate students filled out the Carver and white’s BAS/BIS scale. Then based on standardized z score; 25 subjects  with high BAS sensitivity, 25 with high BIS sensitivity, and 25 were selected as the control group. For all subjects, emotional words were presented to memorize them. Then, half of the subjects of each group were introduced to induce  a happy mood and the other half were introduced to induce a sad mood. At the next stage, the emotional words were presented for all subject to recognize them. Before all, for statistical purposes, the signal detection theory method was used to standardize data.  Then, repeated measurement ANOVA was used to analyze each dependent measure. The results showed that individual with high BIS sensitivity, in the sad mood induction, recognize sad words faster than the high BAS sensivity group and the control group. Whrease, no significant differences were observed in indivitulas with high BAS sensitivity. Concerning the response sensetivity, the results showed neither beween group nor within condition significant differences. However, smaller response bias for negative words was observed in the high BIS sensitivity as compared with the high BAS sensitivity group and the control group. This result indicates that individuals with high BIS sensitivity use more liberal strategy for negative words recognition.